Rotor & Wing Magazine :: Military :: Heavylift

CIVIL European Helo Group Names New Chief The European Helicopter Assn. new chairman is focused on strengthening relationships among operators in the group's 15 member nations and developing a collective voice on regulatory matters affecting rotorcraft. Vittorio Morassi, president and managing director of Helicopters Italia Srl of Trento, Italy and head of several other Italian helicopter endeavors, spoke...

At Fort Rucker, the U.S. Army is introducing the networked simulators that lie at the heart of Flight School XXI. THE FIRST STUDENT AVIATORS FULLY immersed in the U.S. Army's Flight School XXI began training last month and this month start flying their new, high-fidelity simulators. With more time in advanced training devices and go-to-war aircraft, Flight School XXI graduates promise operational...

With planned acquisitions and improvements keeping its production lines busy for years to come, Boeing is preparing for the CH-47 to become the first helicopter to still be flying 100 years after the type entered service. Boeing's CH-47 Chinook started flying in 1962, when helicopters were in much demand, relatively inexpensive and designed and built with the expectation that new and improved replacements...

The U.S. Army is assessing a new system designed to enhance situational awareness for CH-47D and UH-60A/L crews during brownout and other degraded visual conditions. Several articles and letters have been written over the past months describing brownout and discussing methods to overcome this significant threat to helicopters. For instance, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Colby challenged industry "to...

U.S. Army Aviation is fielding the first units under a plan to transform combat elements into highly flexible, self-supporting modular combat brigades designed to move into any arena fast and hit the ground fighting. At the turn of this century, the U.S. Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, laid out a directive to create "strategic dominance across the entire spectrum of operations." The...

Unprecedented Helicopter Force Takes Field in Katrina's Wake Hurricane Katrina destroyed, and helicopters by the score swept in behind her to save and bring succor. In the wake of that devastating Aug. 29 maelstrom and the flooding that followed it, helicopter owners and operators of every size and stripe flew to the grief-stricken regions of Louisiana and Mississippi to help in any way they could. Nearly...

It will take 20 years to develop the technology needed for a new, efficient heavy-lift helicopter. The U.S. Army-led Joint Heavy Lift initiative is the latest effort to get that done. By 2008, the U.S. Army plans to field the first light, highly mobile combat brigade equipped with Future Combat Systems technology. Development of these interim brigade combat teams is the first major step in the Army's...

The U.S. Marine Corps needs a new heavy-lift capability and is convinced an upgrade of the CH-53 is its best bet. U.S. Marine Corp officials are anticipating a Defense Dept. decision this month or next that would clear them to contract with Sikorsky Aircraft to develop and demonstration a heavy-lift replacement for its aging workhorse, the CH-53E. Col. Paul Croisetiere, the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command...

As health and usage monitoring systems prove their worth in the North Sea and elsewhere, more civil and military fliers want the safety and operational benefits they offer. As operational experience proves the scope and value of benefits from health and usage monitoring systems in helicopters, more and more users are pushing for the application of such systems to their fleets. Known as HUMS, such systems...

Whose MH-53Es? Your item on an MH-53E unit being readied for a combat theater states the unit, Helicopter Support Sqdn. Four (HC-4), is a U.S. Marine Corps squadron ("Saved From Extinction, USMC's MH-53E Squadron Gets New Mission," August 2005, page 19). It is, in fact, a U.S. Navy squadron. Marines fly CH-53Es; the Navy MH-53Es. Lt. Anthony Schwarz, U.S. Navy N78 Air Warfare--Helicopter...

New aircraft acquisitions and reduced deployment levels should mean more and newer aircraft for Guard units. But they face many challenges, including answering the call in their home states. The National Guard Assn. of the United States is asking Congress to authorize $309.5 million for six more CH-47F Chinooks and 25 H-60L Black Hawks to support the Guard's requirements under the Army's Aviation...

Great Days in Australia The highly successful Heli Pacific Conference--held July 12-13 in Coolum, Queensland--owed that success to the near doubling of Australia's helicopter fleet in little more than a decade. Other keys to its success were the input from Rob Rich, president of the Helicopter Assn. of Australasia (HAA), and the military day hosted by Brigadier Tony Fraser, commander of 16 Brigade...

"Filling Comanche's Shoes" As Douglas W. Nelm's article suggests, the future of U.S. Army aviation could be decided in the next few months with contract awards for the armed reconnaissance and light utility helicopters ("Filling Comanche's Shoes," May 2006, page 21.) These are the two largest new procurements by the Army. Both fill critical missions. Only the armed reconnaissance...

New Center Offers Firefighting Training The U.S. Forest Service, NASA and the University of California at Davis are teaming up to bring a new level of sophistication and effectiveness to training air crews and mission managers for aerial firefighting. Along with representatives from private industry, those partners have opened an Aviation Center of Excellence at the former McClellan AFB north of...

This time we'll talk less tech and more technique to get into the dusty zone when you don't have the equipment discussed in my last article ("Help With Brownouts," March 2005, page 42). The following approach parameters approximate Black Hawk performance and must be tailored to conditions and your aircraft weight and disk loading. The factors that most effectively counteract dust clouds are wind...

Sikorsky Vows to Break `Pure Helicopter' Sound Barrier Sikorsky is challenging the conventional thinking that a rotorcraft cannot be built to exceed 200-kt. cruise speed without sacrificing the abilities that make a helicopter unique and valuable. "Today's top cruise speeds of 150-170 kt. are only incrementally faster than they were decades ago" due to the limits of conventional rotor systems...

Helicopters as Commodities? One of the more intriguing comments made about the U.S. presidential helicopter decision is that the choice of airframe didn't really matter because helicopters have become commoditized and only exist to carry around their high-tech systems payloads. Another said the contract went to Lockheed Martin because its systems-integration expertise, in the final analysis, mattered much...

AHS' annual meeting in Texas this month takes a broad view of technologies affecting the future of vertical flight. When members gather from around the world for its annual forum and technology display this month in Grapevine, Texas, they will find the American Helicopter Society International pushing the envelope a bit. The yearly meeting of technical specialists and experts in rotorcraft will open with a...

Manufacturers Await USAF's PRV Solicitation The major manufacturers are waiting for the other shoe to drop in the U.S. Air Force's pending competition for a Personnel Recovery Vehicle (PRV) helicopter to replace its existing combat search and rescue (CSAR) helicopter fleet. One candidate has bowed out, while another possible candidate is sitting on the fence waiting for the request for proposals to be...

Starved of federal funding for years, rotorcraft research in the United States is in the worst shape ever. Specialists in the field wonder whether it can be saved. At the heart of the second flooor of an academic building northeast of Washington, behind locked doors, researchers are coming up with a new kind of helicopter. It is designed to be fairly autonomous, capable of carrying a variety of sensor...

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